Grocery shopping is hard work. With so many artificial additives in food, you have to scrutinize the gobbledegook on labels to be sure of what youre getting.

Have you ever bought something you thought was meat and then discovered upon closer inspection that it wasnt meat at all? What in the world is a byproduct, anyway? According to Websters Dictionary, byproduct means an outgrowth, offshoot, or consequence of something else. What is an outgrowth or consequence of meat, and should we be eating it?

Its important to read labels on the backs of packages because whats on the front is often misleading. Unsuspecting parents buy so-called fruit snacks for their kids, thinking they are a nutritious alternative to junk food. In reality, they are 99 percent sugar with imitation fruit flavor and a bunch of chemicals thrown in, which I cant even pronounce. Why not just give your kid a banana? Advertising for juice drinks is just as misleading. Mostly water and sugar, they arent even close to being real juice from a real fruit.

The problem of confusing labels and deceiving wrappers extends beyond the grocery store. In life, as well as on the pantry shelf, things wrapped in pretty packages often contain stuff thats not good for us and may even be dangerous. Likewise, what is good for our character sometimes doesnt look appealing at first glance.

Do you want to be strong and resilient, able to persevere and emerge victorious? These traits come from suffering through trials. Want to be patient? Its a result of waiting and waiting and trusting while you wait some more. We live in a world that focuses on instant gratification, so we are often so focused on the outside wrapping that we miss out on the gift inside.

Your desire is to be happy, but happiness usually comes after we develop attributes like strength and endurance. We often whine when these gifts come our way because we dont like the way theyre wrapped.

Things may look awful to us, but there may be a very good reason for them to be happening. It just hasnt become apparent yet.

Trust that God has a great gift for you inside that unattractive wrapper.